Sappi

Background

Sappi is a leading global provider of everyday materials made from wood fibre-based renewable resources. As a diversified, innovative, and trusted leader focused on sustainable processes and products, Sappi is building a more circular economy by making what it should, not just what it can.

Its raw materials offerings (including dissolving pulp, wood pulp, and biomaterials) and end-use products (packaging papers, specialty papers, graphic papers, casting and release papers, and forestry products) are manufactured from wood fibre sourced from sustainably managed forests and plantations. Many of Sappi’s production facilities use internally generated bioenergy, enabling many of its operations to be energy self-sufficient.

Sappi has more than 12,000 employees in over 35 countries and manufacturing operations on three continents (eight production facilities in Europe, four in North America and five in Southern Africa), and its market-leading range of products is sold and distributed to our direct and indirect customer base across more than 150 countries.

A global mission for growth and operational excellence

On a mission to streamline and harmonize IT and SAP landscapes across the business, Sappi’s Thrive 25 team was turning the IT world upside-down. But in this quest for improvement, systems and transactions used by employees around the world would inevitably change. This left the team at Sappi with a problem: how do you help employees through major change, in multiple locations, in the most effective way, with minimal disruption to business?

With a constant eye on continuous improvement, Sappi found the perfect partnership with OnScreen Guidance, an innovative digital platform that provides real-time guides on-the-job to employees.

The objectives were to:

• Improve training quality and consistency
• Reduce time/rework of updating old training materials
• Reduce errors/IT help tickets

This supports Sappi’s operational excellence strategy arm, which strives to:

• Drive a safety-first culture
• Continuously improve cost position
• Continue to maximize the benefits of its global footprint
• Have best-in-class production efficiencies to secure increased volumes

An innovative solution

From the beginning of the partnership, OnScreen Guidance felt different. Unlike traditional approaches that required hours of training away from the job, hours of work, and rework to keep updated and inevitable consistency issues at delivery, this tool supported employees as they carried out their usual day-to-day activities.

OnScreen Guidance has given Sappi the ability to quickly create and embed guides directly into the software and platforms that power its business. It takes all the best elements of 1-2-1, side-by-side coaching, and puts that support and guidance on the screen where users need it, as they need it.

Standout features include:

• The guides appear exactly at the point of need – at the workplace.
• Greatly improved efficiency as employees no longer have to go in search of help and support.
• Speed to competency is improved because the guides not only help employees through the process but also validate that the process is being followed correctly.
• One-off or infrequently completed tasks that could have otherwise been forgotten are supported.
• Disruption is minimized because there are no hand-offs required.

Overcoming challenges

One of the biggest challenges most fast-paced businesses face is how to maintain one single source of truth across the business, whilst keeping training up to date and keeping employees motivated enough to continually take on new information. OnScreen Guidance overcomes this challenge by streamlining the update process, presenting the changes to every user simultaneously, and facilitating immediate updates in real time with process changes.

Setting a blueprint

Sappi already has several exciting projects planned for OnScreen Guidance, including a large cohort in its logistics center and planned support guides for the company-wide end-of-year appraisal processes. Such is the success of the tool, the logistics center project has already passed proof of concept, reporting that users were able to push messages to maintenance departments with all the information needed, first time, just by following the guide in the live system. One member of staff approaching retirement only had one piece of feedback: “Why didn’t we get this 20 years ago!?”.

The impact

Thanks to its professional change management strategy, Sappi has witnessed the benefits of OnScreen Guidance through its continual measurement of process improvements. Audits and surveys are completed to inform effectiveness, including analysis on training which has received great feedback from all involved.